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Ascend - The Great Books Podcast
The Odyssey Book Twenty-Four: Peace with Roundtable Discussion
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- [00:01]
Deacon Harrison
Hermes leads the souls of the suitors to Hades, to the fields of Asphodel, where they meet Achilles and Agamemnon. One of the suitors tells Agamemnon their story, and Agamemnon praises Odysseus, calling him happy, and praises his wife Penelope, in contrast to his own wife Clytemnestra. Meanwhile, Odysseus and his men arrive at his country estate and he elects to test his father Laertes. Laertes passes the test and Odysseus reveals himself to his father by showing him the scar. Elsewhere on Ithaca, the families of the suitors have discovered their deaths and cries arise throughout the city. Eupithes, father of Antinous, rallies the kinsmen of the suitors to take revenge upon King Odysseus. Medon, or Medon the bard, warns the mob that the deathless gods helped Odysseus, and the local prophet, or seer, tells them it was due to their own craven hearts that the massacre occurred. Athena intercedes on Odysseus behalf and Zeus declares that there should be peace in Ithaca. The mob arrives outside the country estate and Odysseus, Laertes and Telemachus and others prepare for combat. Athena strengthens Laertes to spear Eupeithes in the head and then broker's peace between the two factions.
- [01:37]
Adam
Welcome to Ascend the Great Books Podcast. I'm so glad that you are joining us for the last book of The Odyssey, Book 24. This is the conclusion of the Year of Homer. Whether you are a student trying to pass an exam, whether you are here by accident, or whether you would just enjoy catching the very end of the book to get a synthesis of what the book is all about, which is done in this book. We are glad you were here. We are glad that you are here listening to Ascend the Great Books podcast. Make sure you go check us out on our website as you can catch our. And when I say our I mean like I did a lot of heavy lifting on our study guide that Deacon Garlic writes out himself and I just kind of read it. That's my job when it comes to the guide is reading it. He puts like some really high pressure on me to make sure that this all comes out well and available for you guys. So go check us out. Thegreatbookspodcast.com Deacon we have a party here to end the Year of Homer.
- [02:45]
Deacon Harrison
We do have a party. So we have Dr. Frank Grabowski, who's been on podcasts several times, who teaches at Philosophy at Rogers State. So we're very happy to have him as well. We also have Thomas Lackey, our independent scholar and friend, and also a member of our Sunday Great Books, as are all our guests today. We even have David Niles, who is the co host of the Catholic Man Show. Uh, speaking of, you know, if you've accidentally somehow ended up on a podcast, we welcome David today. So, yeah, it's a very.
- [03:19]
Adam
That was. That was actually why I said that I was. That's right.
- [03:23]
Deacon Harrison
David just kind of literally almost stumbled into this podcast. So that's great. But we're very happy to have him also a member of our Sunday Great Books. So, yeah. Welcome, everybody.
- [03:31]
David
Thank you. I feel like the us as the guests were introduced in an intentional order. This is. And you know, we're doing this on the feast of St. Paul. We're recording this, and I feel like St. Paul, you know, is like the greatest of all sinners here on the. Here on the podcast today.
- [03:50]
Deacon Harrison
That's very humble, David. We appreciate that. Thank you.
- [03:52]
David
Yes. I actually want people to think that it's very humble of me.
- [04:01]
Deacon Harrison
So thanks.
- [04:01]
David
For having me, Deacon.
- [04:05]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, this is going to be good. I can already tell. This is great. See, we're ending our year of Homer, so if you've been reading along with us, we have our guide, like Adam said, and we're kind of bringing this conclusion. So just as, like, before we get into the text, my, like, quick question, which is not going to be a quick question, but you have, like, two minutes. We're limiting this to, like, two minutes. I want to know whether you like the Iliad or the Odyssey. More raw take here at the end of Homer, right? We've had our Year of Homer. We've read both of them. Just like, two minutes. Which one raw take, if you had to pick right now, Iliad or the Odyssey? So, David, why don't you go first?
- [04:39]
David
Okay. Yeah. So I have. I had read both before. I. I read them both a few years ago, just as a quick read, which is really not the way to read either book. But I just wanted to say I've read them. I just wanted to know what was like, what the story, you know, just wanted to read them. And I had no idea about the backstory. I was just reading them. And when I read them that way, I found the Iliad to be boring and strange. You know, it's just kind of like, all right, this guy. It's like, who's your dad? All right, now I can kill you. Who's your dad? All right? And then like, that's it. And the whole time I was waiting for the Trojan Horse to happen, and it never did. Okay, spoiler alert. It's not in the Iliad. And so then when I read the Odyssey just as a story, right. If all you're doing is just reading it for the value of the story, the Odyssey was much more entertaining. There were, you know, because there's character development, which the Iliad has some character development. But you know, obviously in the Odyssey you're following Odysseus and it's just, it's more personal. So I enjoyed it a lot more. But this time, having read it in our group and gone through with the like in a slow read, I found the Iliad to be much more entertaining, much more enjoyable anyway, just because I think there were more insights that I found personally remarkable in the Iliad. And maybe part of that is because my expectations were lower. The Iliad, that, you know, it surprised me more by how much I enjoyed it. So I personally, in a two minute summary, I enjoyed the Iliad more than the Odyssey, having done a deeper dive.
- [06:39]
Deacon Harrison
Oh, very good, Adam.
- [06:42]
Adam
I've learned that as I've been reading the great books that my palette hasn't been ready for it. So I remember the first time I read Dante, I was like, this is ridiculous. Like, the things that were the insights that we were saying within the group, like, I feel like you're forcing it in. I think you're giving Dante too much credit. Like, I remember thinking that as we were reading Dante and then like, I remember at the end of the Iliad, I was like, yeah, I'm really disappointed in like several aspects of the way soldiers, like, conducted themselves, the way God swooped in, some of the. Just the way things played out. I was a little disappointed. But I've learned that as I've been reading these texts and kind of wrestling with them and kind of contemplating the story, that I come to a deeper appreciation as time goes on. So it's hard for me to say I like the Iliad better than the Odyssey, because I've had more time to think about the Iliad having been removed about six months from it, to really think about it than I have for the Odyssey. Like, my raw take would be, I like the Iliad better than the Odyssey. But I would like to take another, you know, to put a hold on that and maybe in another six months ask me again, because I just don't think I've had a chance to really chew on it and digest the story as a whole. So my raw take would Be the Iliad. With a caveat, Thomas.
- [08:13]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, actually, mine's going to be pretty close to what Adam said. I think my inclination is Tommy does.
- [08:19]
Adam
That with me all the time. He always rips off me, like, all.
- [08:22]
Deacon Harrison
The good things I say.
- [08:22]
Adam
He always.
- [08:24]
David
That's why he appears to be so smart.
- [08:26]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, Just copying Adam all the time. No, I think. I mean, Elliot has these huge themes of death and immortality and what does it mean to. What is the relation between men and the gods? And all these very interesting themes to go on. And we did chew on those quite a bit in the Great Books group. And I think I feel like in the case of the Odyssey that. I don't know why it would feel this way, because I think the timing works out just about the same. But it seems like it went faster. It seems like we haven't, like. I haven't really had the time to ruminate on it in the same way, but the. Yeah, I think, anyway. Iliad, I think. But I feel like there's more kind of there in the Odyssey if I just stew on it for a while longer.
- [09:22]
Deacon Harrison
Very much. Yeah, very much. Following Adam, Dr. Gorowski, what do you think? Yeah. Give us our Odyssey opinion.
- [09:28]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, you know, it's hard for me to say that I like one more than the other because I've really come to read them as a unit. It's impossible to, I think, understand the Iliad without reading the Odyssey, and vice versa. And so I think that, for instance, both poems address the issue of Kleis, or glory. But I think the Iliad may do so more clearly in Xenia, I think, again, is taken up in both epics. But it's maybe a bit clearer, more profound in the Odyssey. I suppose that for me, the Odyssey both. So I think both epic poems raise this question about the relationship between the gods and mortals. And if we have time, I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on Homer's position regarding the Greek pantheon and whether these are gods worthy of our honor and our loyalty and our piety. But I think, you know, one of the questions that is brought up very clearly in the Odyssey, it has to do with, I think, the very existence of these gods. I mean, I think that the. I think Homer's Odyssey can be read as a critique of sorts. And if it can be read as a critique of sorts of the Greek pantheon, then that really does cast an interesting light on Plato's Republic and how Plato handles Homer. So I guess for me, of the two, the Odyssey strikes me as more philosophical. And so, given my philosophical temperament, I think that I'm drawn more to it. But I don't think that it can be truly understood independently of the Iliad, and as I said, vice versa.
- [11:21]
Deacon Harrison
No. Very good, the Iliad. I'm going to pick the Iliad. I've read both several times. I think I gravitate towards the Iliad because I'm drawn to the characters. And in the Iliad, I'm very much taken with the contrast between Achilles and Hector. I think the Odyssey tends to be a much more complex text. It tends to be one that generates a lot more debate, I'll certainly give it that. But the reason I think it does that is because it's not Achilles versus Hector, it's Odysseus versus Odysseus. It's Odysseus compared to Odysseus, which then kind of lends itself to a lot of different themes. There's very positive things about him and very negative themes. And I think that while I think the Odyssey might generate a lot more conversation simply because I think it's more vague in areas, or at least maybe in a positive light, invite you to certain mysteries that have to be explored. I think the Iliad, I just really enjoy kind of its straightforwardness. I enjoy the contrast of the characters. I really enjoy, I think, the host of characters which then kind of end up serving as all these little analogues for human personalities and how they kind of weave together. I've noticed that as a narrative, I've enjoyed that more than unpacking one character, Odysseus, if that makes sense. So my second question for the end of A Year of Homer is like your biggest takeaway. Just what's your biggest takeaway for the Year of Homer? After we read this text. Several of you are first time readers, so I went last, first time, so I'll go first this time. My biggest takeaway, I think is in the Iliad, which obviously I think we're always going to gravitate towards. The text that we just mentioned was our favorite really was this contrast between Achilles and Hector and the question of what is Arete, what is the question of human excellence? And that's the one that really just kind of captured my imagination throughout this whole thing. So even when we're reading the Odyssey, I'm still trying to answer that question in the capacity of looking at Odysseus. I think that's the thing that really stood out to me, that I appreciate of Ilia this more. If I had to pick anything from the Year of Homer that I learned, I think it is an appreciation for Homer as the teacher, that I share a human nature with these characters and that I think he very intentionally was trying to express something about human nature in them, even if he's working in a very nascent sense. Right. He's at the very beginning. So I don't think he's a philosopher, but I think he is revealing something about humanity. Dr. Grabowski, what do you think? What's your biggest takeaway for the. What's your biggest takeaway?
- [13:43]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And I agree with you, Deacon Harrison, that, you know, it's impossible to understand the other great books, you know, the Greek tragedies, Plato, Aristotle, without having some sort of basis in Homer. So this idea of Homer being the teacher is something that certainly the Greeks accepted. And it's something. I think if we're going to have any idea or any understanding of the history of ideas, we have to take that seriously as well. I guess for me, one of the big takeaways is, well, I guess it goes back to the first book of the Odyssey, where Homer, or where excuse Merweus, essentially blames all of man's ills on man. And that seems so. So utterly contrary to everything that we read in both the Iliad and the Odysseys. I mean, the gods are constantly intervening, they're constantly picking sides. And so for Zeus to so audaciously, audaciously say that, well, we're not to blame, it's mortals to blame, I think, is it's obviously false, or at least to me, it's obviously false. And this kind of raises this bigger question of theodicy and where does Homer stand regarding the gods and whether they're worthy of our worship and piety. So that, to me is something that I'm always coming back to. And I think that comes up again in the last book of the Odyssey. And so we have Zeus in book one saying it isn't at all our fault, it's man's fault. But yet again, whether we read it literally or not, he's going to cause mass amnesia as a way of bringing peace to Ithaca, which seems very strange to me.
- [15:36]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, very good. Thomas, what do you think one thing that stood out to you in the year of Homer?
- [15:41]
Thomas Lackey
You know, I think the Iliad raises, like I said, a lot of questions about, I think, what the end of man is, what the proper role and goal of life should be that are then answered in part, I think, in the Odyssey. And I say only in part because there's a sort of cloud hanging over all of this that I think is then developed later in Plato. But I think you've got this. You said the contrast between Hector and Achilles and whether or not the glory that Achilles is striving for is really what it means to be a man. And the Odyssey, I think, rejects that. I mean, you could have perhaps taken that away from the Iliad, but I think it's sort of flatly rejected in the Odyssey. And a vision of family and peace is replaced with one of conflict and war. And whether or not that's a final end, I think is left slightly open because there's at least a hint for, in the, in Heracles, in the underworld, that there's actually something yet higher left out, something of this, this commerce with, with the Olympian gods, that something higher that man could yet reach. And, but there's a, So I would say that, that, that ultimately, I think to see that the stories are about raising the question of what does it mean to be a human being, and then sort of offering tentative answers along the way that get, as it were, progressively better, but without ever coming to, I would say, an absolutely final conclusion. But there's still a hint there. So that would, that would be my take.
- [17:35]
Deacon Harrison
No, I very much agree. I think there's something adjacent there too, about probably my second favorite thing of the entire year of Homer is why Odysseus said no to Calypso and him denying immortality. I think that that is, that's a question I think to ask that goes into that fate and the purpose of man. Adam, what do you think your takeaway from the year of Homer?
- [17:53]
Adam
Yeah, I mean, my initial, my initial take isn't actually about Homer, but about the desire or like the quality of being able to do it with other people. Right. Like, I could have read this by myself and there's no way I would have come to some of the conclusions that I came without reading it with other people. So, like, the, the being able to do that with other friends and being able to sit down and really talk about it was, was, was very, very helpful. You know, I, I, I do think that it, it shed some light because I had, I had not read everything in order.
- [18:28]
Thomas Lackey
Right.
- [18:28]
Adam
So I, I had, I've already read some of Plato's dialogues and things like that, so it did shed some light into that, which makes me hungry and like, thirsty to go back and read Plato again. Because now it's like, oh, I have more of the insights and more of the scoop, so to speak, of what makes the, the text richer. And so I Want to go back and read Plato again. And so. But I also, like, some of the things that really, like, shocked. There were some things that shocked me about Homer. Like, if I had not read it slowly, I. I would not have come to the conclusion, like. Like, just the way the gods interacted with. With. With man, how I. I kept hearing ahead, like, the Odyssey was a story of fatherhood, you know, of Odysseus going back. And, like, I would. I'd really like, at some point to talk, like, to push back on that, at least some of the raw takes of that I have about this. Because, like, I don't see that maybe that as a subset, maybe as a underlining or something, like, maybe even like a silver lining, if you want to. But, like, to me, that's not what. What it was about. And so, like. But it was. It was just very. It was very enriching and, like, really pushed me intellectually reading them both together and reading them as a. As a group.
- [19:48]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, very good, David. What do you think?
- [19:52]
David
So my biggest takeaway, and without just. I agree with a lot of you guys. And so without repeating, I just really enjoyed pondering the relationship between gods and man, okay. And the fact that this was written so long ago, it's very difficult for me to have an appreciation for what must have people thought back then, okay. Because we all live in a world where we have the benefit of divine revelation. Okay? Like, the world as a people have. We just have more truth today, okay? And so these are all pagans, and yet they still came to this conclusion of a higher power, you know, that we. We as man are meant to serve this divinity. And what does that relationship look like? And so I. That was the thing that I enjoyed pondering the most. And that's. And I think that's another reason why I enjoyed the Iliad so much, because that's just so prevalent in the Iliad. It's certainly there in the Odyssey when you look at the end when Athena comes in and basically just, you know, trumps everything that you were gonna do, right? That all the people. She just, like, wipes or she didn't wipe. I don't know if she wipes their mind, but she just ends it all, right? And just using divine intervention. And so that's really what I enjoy. And just thinking about how even for them, they still got so much right, and just how what that says about humanity and how we have an innate part of us that knows that we are supposed to serve and we're created for the divine.
- [21:48]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, very Good. Right. I remember when I was converting and I found out that St. Thomas Aquinas presents religion as a natural virtue, that religion is something that's natural to man, that man naturally wants to give God his due and look for something that's superior to him to give honor to. I do think you see that in an obscure way, sometimes in a very dark way, but in a clear way in the Greek mythologies. You know, as we study the Greek books, one of the things that we always talk about is that, you know, there's a great conversation that we're entering into. We're going to see that more on Ascend as the podcast moves forward, because now we're going to look at different authors. You know, we've just had our Year of Homer, so now we're going to start looking at different authors. We'll start seeing how they're playing on these same themes. So we're going to step into that great conversation, if you will. But we also talk about perennial truths, right? The great texts introduce us to these perennial truths and these perennial questions, right, that have answers about who we are as humans. So even if you just look at, like, I just jotted a few things down. But if you just look at our answers to our takeaway from our Year of Homer as a group, we talked about virtue, arete, human excellence, the divine will, the purpose in man, his final end. What is his teleology? We talked about immortality, you know, fatherhood, and, you know, understanding his relationship to the divine. I mean, these are. These are perennial subjects, right? These are questions that the authors of the great texts are going to take up for thousands and thousands of years. And Homer's really our introduction to that.
- [23:15]
David
Yeah, no, I think that's totally true, because the great question every generation has ever asked, and all future generations will ask, is, what does it mean to be man? What does it mean that I am a man? What does that mean that I ought to do? What is the excellence of being what I am? And so Homer really does address these things, and I think another really impressive thing is the way he was able to, in my opinion, offer a critique on the values and the culture of his day, while simultaneously doing it subliminally in front of an aristocratic audience that would have still received his story with popular acclaim, because it could have been this great, you know, philosophical work, but if it didn't receive popular acclaim at the time, it would have never moved to the next step. Like, it just would have been a great story that nobody appreciated, and it would have never been written down. But he did it in such a masterful and genius way that even the people of his time said, wow, we have to tell that story again. Somebody write that down. And at the same time, he knew, I'm offering a critique of you writing it down and the values that we hold as a society. Because in this. In my opinion, I think he was saying we're missing something. The values and the things that we're upholding as good, I don't think that they line up with what is truly good for man.
- [24:54]
Deacon Harrison
What do you think? So I agree with you because I think that leans into our principle of Homer the teacher. A lot of people look at the Iliad and the Odyssey and see Homer as just a flat echo of his time. There's no intentionality of the text. He's simply just echoing whatever the culture is. And I think that in the Iliad, if you asked me, like, what is the critique? I think the critique is Hector. Because I think one thing that we're accustomed to in the Iliad that actually is very strange is that we have the epic of a people that actually then gives a lot of attention to the humanity of their enemies. This is not actually common in ancient epics. Right. Normally, the hero just goes on and just stomps everyone to death. And like, look, this is our wonderful hero that we had of our people who overcame all of these difficulties. They don't humanize the enemy, but we have, like, Hector holding up his child.
- [25:44]
Thomas Lackey
Well, in some cases, the enemy is deliberately dehumanized. Right. The enemy becomes literally a monster, a creature. This. You don't even have to enter into that question at all. You think about.
- [25:55]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, you mean like in other. Other epics.
- [25:57]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, in other epics, yeah.
- [25:59]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Even though you're right, Thomas, it creates empathy. And I think that's what is so radical about these two epics is that it's very difficult. I think those who read it for the first time or who've read it for the hundredth time still struggle with picking sides. You know, I think that, you know, we've. Some of us may empathize more with the Achaeans, and some may empathize more with the Trojans, but there's a kind of ambivalence where there are aspects of Achilles that are. That. That are admirable and. And some that are. Are deplorable. And the same is true with Hector. And so I think that that's what makes it so. I mean, that's what has made it such an enduring work is that it isn't, you know, it isn't so black and white. And you're right, they don't. Homer deliberately doesn't demonize the other because there really isn't the other. They're both on equal footing.
- [27:01]
Deacon Harrison
What do you think the critique, though is? So in the Iliad, I would say the critique of the audience, if we want to phrase it like that, is Hector, here's the prince of our enemy, and look at the arete that he has. And even pushing arete from say, a simple spiritedness of military prowess, skill that we see in Achilles, to, say, Hector, who has piety towards, say, the gods, the polis and the family, that maybe the being an excellent human means more than just combat skills. Where do we see, though, the critique, David, in the Odyssey, like, where do you see that Homer's critiquing his audience? There's.
- [27:38]
David
Well, I think actually it comes up here in chapter 24. Like right at the beginning of chapter 24, you have Hermes escorting these souls into the afterlife and they meet Achilles and then they meet Agamemnon and they actually say, agamemnon, you were the one we thought of all the fighting princes, Zeus, who loves the lightning, favored most all your days, okay? And so here is Agamemnon, who met actually a humiliating end. And here at the very end of the book, I think it's important that you know the things that take place here at the end. You know, as Homer is wrapping up this story, he's saying, oh, you, Agamemnon, you're the one who everybody thought was favored the most. And here you met this. You were killed by a woman, you were killed by your wife. You didn't die in battle, you died at home, kind of like a slob. It's a humiliating end. And so I think that we're talking about chapter 24. So I think right here is a good example of a pretty strong critique over what do they as a civilization value. And Homer's saying, you know, maybe this isn't it.
- [29:00]
Deacon Harrison
I think it's wonderful. No, let's use that as a segue to get into the text. So book 24 opens up with a scene shift, I think for first time readers. I think that's interesting, right? We're waiting to see what happens with Odysseus, but we get the shift to Hermes taking all the souls of the suitors down to Hades into the underworld. It seems. If I was going to summarize this conversation, David, I very much parallel what you just said and what it seems is that we are comparing several different paths to glory. Right. What is the actual purpose of our life? So we get Achilles funeral. They're praising these different things. Look at all the immortality that you had. You sought this immortality through fame, and you've achieved it. Look at your funeral. I mean, the muses come and sing at Achilles funeral. Somewhere on the hierarchy of things that can happen at your funeral, that's gotta be pretty hot, right? I mean, that doesn't happen all the time. We've seen that. Anytime the muses show up, that's a very important event. So, you know, there's a golden urn, there's all these things that happen. And then Agamemnon. And I think that, you know, Thomas was really good at unpacking this for us when he was on the podcast. You know, he. No one actually ever remembers him conquering Troy. That's not what he's remembered for. Right. He failed in the hero's journey, he failed on the return side. And yeah, he's killed either at the banquet table or he's killed in the bath, depending on what story you follow. But he's killed by his wife and his wife's lover. It's a humiliating end. And I think that then, you know, the, the comparison then is kind of the somewhat unsaid comparison is to Odysseus. And which one of these men has it the best is Achilles, Agamemnon or Odysseus? Because to me, the most important statement in the underworld is when Agamemnon calls Odysseus happy. Happy Odysseus. And I think that's a commentary on which one of them has actually achieved the greatest end.
- [30:55]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, I mean, I think it's not terribly subtle either. I mean, I think if you look at just the structure of book 24, you are. It is the end of the Odyssey, but he's wrapping up the ends of all of these stories and he's very, you know, dragging them forward again. Almost represent them, because some of these stories we've heard already. In fact, perhaps all of these stories we've heard already and we're being told them again here one last time. And we're represented with the ultimate end of Achilles, the ultimate end of Agamemnon and them looking forward to. Okay, well, but what about Odysseus and calling him blessed and happy as a. And I think that you. You see that. Oh, and I guess we'll see that these, this representation come throughout, throughout this book. Now, I will say that the structure of book 24 is a little compressed. It has that feeling of something that almost seems like it should have been a little bit longer. Or, you know, it's just an. It's. I would say that of all the books in the Odyssey, or for that matter, and maybe in the Iliad, it. It's. It's the most. It jumps around the most, I would say. And it took a little while, I think, of reading it before I came to. I think there is a. There's a method to its oddity, but it is a little bit stranger structure.
- [32:21]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, Thomas, let me just mention too. I mean, those who are present here on the podcast may know this, but there was a debate among ancients regarding the authenticity, whether this book was part of the original text or whether it was something that had been added later. Because it seems like. Well, the argument would be, well, there were a lot of loose ends by the end of book 23, and so we had to kind of tie them up because all the suitors were dead, and what would their parents have thought? And so there was a need to kind of, in a deus ex machina way, bring it all together to make sense out of all the violence and whatnot. And so, you know, I don't have an opinion about this, but I agree, Thomas, that it does seem a bit rushed. I think that's what you're getting at.
- [33:15]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, it does seem a bit rushed. Now, I will say I have no opinion on the scholarship because that's outside my. I think thematically, though, this makes a lot of sense. And I would also say that just in the sense of literature, you often have amazing authors who tell stories. Now, obviously, these are not going to be at the same level, but if you read stories by even adventure people like Jules Verne or H.G. wells, you often have this feeling as well where you've got this great narrative structure that all of a sudden just seems to wrap up in three pages, so that even. It wouldn't be unique to Homer even if that were the case, and it could still be authentic. I think one thing that has to happen, and we're going to get here, is that if you look at ending at book 23, you've now seen Odysseus restored to his family. But that's not all that Odysseus is. He's not just a husband and father.
- [34:07]
Deacon Harrison
He's.
- [34:08]
Thomas Lackey
He's a king. And without book 24, you don't see Odysseus restored to his state, nor the healing of the state. Just like there's a kind of A dual motion going on where it's not just that Odysseus has returned to his family, but there's a kind of healing of the family by his return. So there's a mutual healing going on in both directions. And there's something that here that has to happen in the state as well. The king has to return, which is his triumph in a sense, but also the state which is, as Laertes says, being run by fools, has to itself be healed by his return. And again, without book 24, I think it's more than just a loose end. I mean, I think it's just not an end.
- [34:55]
Deacon Harrison
Can we push though, into the Hades scene? Because I think it's very clear, obviously it's very clear that Agamemnon failed to achieve glory. Right? Chaos. If you look at the three. So we have Agamemnon with Achilles and Odysseus. But I'd really like to understand why or what are we actually saying when we say that Homer places Odysseus above Achilles? Is that not a critique of some point? Or how do we articulate that Odysseus actually has greater glory than Achilles in this? Because we get like this overarching, right narrative of look how grand your funeral was. And two things come to mind there. You know, if we go recall back to the Iliad where Achilles has his choice of fates, right? So you can either die in Troy and have immortal glory or you can go home and have a peaceful family life and he chooses to stay in Troy. We've already seen in the other passage in the Odyssey when we went down to Hades the first time, that Achilles does not think he made the right choice. Or at least that's how I would read it. At least it's highly implied that way. Right? Because what's he say? I would rather be back in the world. I'd be back amongst the living as a dirt farmer. I would trade that all in to be back on God's green earth, use a phrase, instead of being down here. Even though I'm basically king of the dead. And so I think that really has to inform this because even though Agamemnon's praising Achilles, I think we've already seen Achilles ultimate kind of glory and whether he made the right choice be critiqued by Homer in the first visit to Hades. And if I had to say, then, okay, so then why does Odysseus have greater glory than Achilles? It's because Odysseus seems to in a certain way have achieved both of the fates. So he has the fate of immortal glory in being part of the Trojan War. He has a Trojan horse. He did all the things during the interim period. They basically only won because of his ingenuity, etc. But then he also has the journey home, which then allows him to have peace with his family. Presumably, we'll kind of talk about what happens after the narrative and what the traditions are, but this is what Zeus theoretically gives him, right? That he'll reign in peace. So if I had to kind of throw out an initial thought, it seems that Odysseus then reigns above Agamemnon and Achilles because he's able to achieve both of these ends.
- [37:13]
Thomas Lackey
I would agree, definitely. And if you think back to the Iliad with the shield of Achilles, that has these the city at peace and the city at war. I think that's been the. There's a sense in which you can also take these as emblems of the Iliad and the Odyssey. But I think if you apply these to Odysseus, you see him as being the complete man, the whole man, in a way that Achilles is, as it were, half of a man. Achilles is the greatest at war, but he's essentially lousy at peace. And you see him beginning to long for this as he thinks about his son. And if anything, Achilles, sort of slightly happier tone, if you might put it this way, in book 24, I think you could ascribe perhaps to the knowledge that his son, you know, is. Is doing well after all. There's a kind of, you know, hopefulness in that. But in Odysseus, you have this again, this complete man, a whole man that is able to thrive in both war and peace. And I think the Odyssey is, in some sense, you could understand as a kind of transition time between the man of war becoming again a man of peace. And I don't think that. That. That's not something that seems to be able to happen in an instant. It's not a switch he just turns on and off. But in fact, in some real sense, he had to go through this to become the sort of man that was ready to come home.
- [38:41]
Deacon Harrison
How do you. How would we play in Penelope? So when Agamemnon calls Odysseus happy, he actually very much does so in the context of having a good and faithful wife. Right? He actually. That's at line. So in book 24, line 210, he calls him happy. A little bit south of that. Right. What a faithful wife you've won. And then he praises Penelope by name and then compares her with Obviously clearly his own wife who he's slightly upset with. But what is the role then of you know, Penelope in Odysseus achieving this glory and being able to come home and actually return as the king?
- [39:19]
Adam
I think that's a good question. Deacon. I also want to pose another question because I'm interested in your guys thoughts on top of that and I think maybe it sheds a light on both. But I was really curious on like how many times did Agamemnon actually meet Penelope? Like does he actually even know her? Or is this Agamemnon more of slight to his own wife than a raising up of Penelope? Obviously he praises her, but throughout all of this you see him continually praising other people like oh you know, this is the better thing. Unlike me who like and he always brings it back to him and like his downfall and his pitfalls and like what's happened to him and his wife. So I, I'm actually just curious like obviously I don't think the text says it but like how, like how much of it is it him actually knowing who Penelope is or, and how much of it is him actually just contrasting like his woes to that?
- [40:17]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well Adam, I think, I think to answer your question, I mean one doesn't need to know someone's wife. Like I don't, I've never met your wife but, but certainly I, I, I, she's amazing.
- [40:31]
Adam
You would, you would like her, she's really awesome.
- [40:33]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Sure I would. But in a way, you know, the wife is an extension of the husband and vice versa. And so I think that Agamemnon, what, what Penelope provides is stability. I mean she keeps everything together long enough for Odysseus to return and to re establish his rule. And so there's something to be admired in that. And so I don't think that Agamemnon needs to have actually met her in person to at least gather from what's happened that she is a reflection in a way of Odysseus, that she possesses the same wily traits and the same polytropos nature as Odysseus does. But I mean, go ahead.
- [41:22]
David
Yeah, I agree Frank. I don't think his comments here necessarily reflect the fact that he may have known her. I think he did meet her. I think there are at least a few times where he would have met her. Like when they went to recruit Odysseus.
- [41:37]
Adam
Yeah, I mean I think he may have met her a couple times.
- [41:40]
David
I just don't, I don't read his personal like knowledge or relationship of Penelope in his comments here, I think it's more about his just awareness of her conduct here at the end.
- [41:55]
Deacon Harrison
But to Adam's point, I think that the re. Like, what's his reference guide? Like, what's his actual reference point in making these conversations? I do think he's the same old Agamemnon. I still think he's imploded. Right. He's mainly focused on himself. So I think the reason he keeps praising Odysseus in context of Penelope is because. Yes, I agree with Dr. Grabowski. I think he's praising Penelope because of her effects, because he can see the effects of Penelope because of the stability of the home, not the betrayals. All these things, which I think Odysseus is incredibly indebted to, to actually come back as the king. But I think that he's basically just viewing it through his own plight. He's viewing it through his own wife's betrayal of killing him in the bathtub. And so therefore, every time he calls Odysseus happy, he has to remember, oh, yeah, because of Penelope. And you guys, by the way, do you remember what my wife did? Remember her? He hasn't mentioned that 500 times already. Right. So I do think that, you know, this is the same old Agamemnon that was kind of, you know, imploded in making dumb decisions and wanting to run home in the Iliad. What was that famous line from Odysseus? Right. You are the disaster. Like, by. By gods, we were ruled by any other king but you. So I think that he. He's still narcissistic. He's still good old Agamemnon, and he's going to praise Odysseus through Penelope because of his own plight.
- [43:11]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Can I just add one point, though? I mean, I'm sorry, Thomas, may I?
- [43:15]
Thomas Lackey
No, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
- [43:17]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Okay, so, but see, this does sort of call into question. It does cast doubt on the reliability of Agamemnon's judgment in saying that Odysseus is happy, because compared to Agamemnon, anyone would be happy.
- [43:33]
David
Right.
- [43:33]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And so I don't wish to deny that Homer is trying to make a point here about Odysseus being. He is the model that we ought to be striving for. But given Agamemnon's cynicism, I mean, he could say that anyone is happier. And so I do think that that's something to be mindful of. I mean, perhaps Homer is making a larger point here, but Agamemnon really isn't the person that I would want to turn to. To ask, well, what is happiness? Because his answer would be anything but me.
- [44:09]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, that's fair.
- [44:10]
David
I don't think any of us are going to be naming our sons Agamemnon, for instance.
- [44:14]
Deacon Harrison
Probably not. It's also a really hard name to say. We were angry.
- [44:17]
David
Yeah. And it's hard to spell in kindergarten.
- [44:21]
Thomas Lackey
Well, one thing I would say is that when Agamemnon praises Odysseus and Penelope, at least according to some of the commentaries and stuff that I was looking at, he praises Penelope's virtue. But the. It's a bit ambiguous in the Greek as to whether or not the virtue he's praising is Odysseus's virtue for having chosen Penelope or Penelope's own virtue. And I think the reconciliation of that is probably that it's deliberately ambiguous, that there's a kind of notion here that she is a truly great woman and Odysseus is precisely the kind of man that would marry a woman like Penelope. With the contrast being that Clytemnestra is a truly horrible woman and Agamemnon is precisely the kind of man that would marry a woman like that. And they're being contrasted as a couple where the two perfectly suit each other. And I think that that's something that Homer is actually drawing out. And there's a. There's a Greek word here that I'm going to probably butcher the pronunciation of, but it's like kuridios or something like that, where he's talking about their wedded life together. And apparently, again, according to the commentaries, I don't speak Greek, but this kind of encompasses their wedded life. Like this is a holistic kind of word. And he's calling that entire life happy in a way that he's then contrasting his to being unhappy. But again, this. This is. This is the. A notion. It makes me almost think of Dickens, where you've got the Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby. I don't know if anybody else will pick up the reference. There's this truly awful couple, but they're perfectly suited to each other. I think there's a kind of contrast here going on between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra as being two halves of a whole and Penelope and Odysseus being two halves as a whole put into a contrast as a couple.
- [46:27]
Deacon Harrison
I like that. I like that because it also runs quite parallel to our conversations of why does Odysseus like Penelope so oftentimes? He kind of would leave her out of the List. Like, sometimes it's like, oh, I've got to get home to Ithaca because my country and my things and my people and, you know, and then he names, like, 15 things and he never gets to his wife. But then at times, you know, like, when he compared her to Calypso, he basically, you know, implied heavily that it was her intellect. Right. It's her cleverness. And she is the matchless queen of cunning, which I think we pull from book one of the Odyssey, if I remember correctly. And, yeah, so I think they are coupled together. I like that idea. And I also really like the idea that then Agamemnon has the wife that he deserves.
- [47:11]
Thomas Lackey
Well, and I think if you contrast with this book 23 a little bit, which is a, you know, masterpiece, you just see the understanding that the two of them have of each other. I mean, I think that's one of the most touching things that comes out. Just what, you know, Odysseus seeing her hesitation. And Telemachus doesn't get it. Like, mom, you know, run up. It's dad, you know, and. But he understands. They understand each other, as it were, perfectly, without even having to speak, even after all this time. And that's presented in this. In this picturesque way and then drawn out in a beautiful kind of, you know, conversation relating to the bed and all the rest of it and their life together. But I think now we're looking at this. That's, of course, like an inside picture. And now we're getting an outside picture of the same relationship.
- [48:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And, Thomas, just to add one point, your idea that Penelope and Odysseus are complementary to each other. I mean, this comes across very clearly later when we read in Plato's Symposium, we encounter Aristophanes speech about love as being two parts of what used to be a whole having been separated. And love is then the rejoining of those two parts. And so I think that this is a very Greek, at least, you know, within these epic works that we've been reading a poetic understanding of love as being a union of severed halves.
- [48:43]
Deacon Harrison
Any other thoughts on this kind of like, snapshot picture into Hades?
- [48:48]
Thomas Lackey
I think it is just funny that the suitors tell a story that's not accurate. I mean, that's just genius on Homer's part. He's tweaking the tale here and there. He doesn't mention that they've just forgot to lock the door. You know, things like that. You know, he blames other people for all the. I think it's just brilliantly done and showing the character of Antinous or. I think it was in tenuous.
- [49:22]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I think Amphimedon, he's the one. Oh, amphibian, yeah, Amphibian, yeah, yeah. It's the apology or the defense?
- [49:31]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, yeah. And he, obviously, he's looking for sympathy and has the least sympathetic response in the history of literature, probably. So that was also funny.
- [49:42]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah. Where it's like we. It talks about the clotted gore and that Odysseus slaughtered them all. And the first thing Agavin Mon says is happy Odysseus. Right. There's just immediate praising. But I mean. Yeah. Again, this. Like, this is the full circle.
- [49:53]
Adam
Right.
- [49:53]
Deacon Harrison
Because then that leads back into Agamemnon's own story and why he would see Odysseus as happy. So that's very good.
- [49:59]
David
I'll bet he is so happy to have just killed you. Oh, gosh.
- [50:03]
Thomas Lackey
Well, and the funny thing is he addresses Amphimedon with the same questions that Odysseus had addressed him. Like, you know, if you look at the three questions, I'd have to go back and look at the lines. But when Odysseus finds Agamemnon in Hades and he's like, what are you doing here? How did you. You know, what are you in for? That he. He addresses the same series of questions. And so we're definitely seeing this kind of loop, but with a very different.
- [50:28]
Deacon Harrison
It's like a weird form of guest friendship.
- [50:30]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [50:31]
Deacon Harrison
There's like a ritual like, okay, why are you here? How did you get here? And what's your chaos? Right. Because that seems to be the question. Right. Is they're actually trying to ascertain, like, what's the chaos that you've kind of brought down here. And obviously the suitors have next to none, which is what Penelope critiqued them for.
- [50:45]
David
So actually, the next guest friendship is. It's right here. Like, right before he goes, it launches into this summary of the entire story, beginning at like 1 31st. Who is it this that's asking? Oh, it's Agamemnon. Is that it? Anyway, he says, I was once your guest, so now you know, like, tell me what happened. That's at like 1:25 or so. And so it's just funny that those same themes that have been reoccurring throughout the whole story, they all come back here in the fourth chapter. Even we've mentioned healing. Did I say fourth?
- [51:30]
Adam
Yes.
- [51:31]
David
Anyway, I keep doing that. I've called the 24th chapter the fourth chapter many times. Even, like, you guys have mentioned kind of healing at the very Beginning, like line 10, Hermes is referred to as Hermes the healer, which he's not referred to as the giant killer, which is interesting. I'm not really sure what it means, but that was something that stuck out to me. And it's just interesting that the idea of healing has come up at least a couple times in our conversation.
- [52:02]
Deacon Harrison
I think that's arguably the theme of book 24. Right. This goes back to Thomas's point, and I think Dr. Grabowski mentioned as well that this is the book of wrapping things up. This is a book of healing. This is a book of actually taking all these loose ends and saying, this is how it resolves and everything is.
- [52:19]
Thomas Lackey
Now okay, and some people die. Well, what I meant by the restatement is, like, when you write a paper, you know, you often have a conclusion in which certain aspects of the thing get restated and summarized. But books don't always end that way. In this case, though, I. He does. Homer does seem to not just be wrapping things up, but first restating them and then bringing their conclusion. It has this. Yeah.
- [52:49]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, very good. Let's look at another somewhat controversial scene, which is when Odysseus goes out to meet his father at the country estate. Good old Laertes, who. The first time I read the Odyssey, I was incredibly surprised to find out that he was still alive because I figured he'd be somewhat involved in the cluster that was his own kingdom. Right. With Penelope. But here we have Laertes out at the country estate tending to his plants, and Odysseus, very fittingly for his own character, decides to test him. Any kind of immediate thoughts on this passage?
- [53:26]
Adam
I don't know how his dad didn't recognize immediately who he was because he, like, walks up, he's like, hello, I'm looking for this person. Do you want to know his story? Here, let me tell you his story. And, like, he just immediately, like, he didn't ask. Like, he basically asked a rhetorical question just to be able to just start talking about it. It's like, what other character in this book is a guy who just like. I can't wait to tell you the story. Let me tell you the story. Other than Nestor, probably. Nestor is probably.
- [53:52]
Thomas Lackey
I was gonna mention Nestor is probably.
- [53:55]
Adam
The other one who gets a shout.
- [53:57]
David
Out here in the chapter, which I know you enjoyed.
- [53:59]
Adam
Which I did. I did enjoy it, but I just found it hilarious that it was on brand for Odysseus at the very beginning with his dad. And he just rolls right into it.
- [54:14]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's a couple ways to read.
- [54:16]
David
Sort of messed up that he tested his dad. Like, come on, bro.
- [54:20]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, that's the question.
- [54:21]
David
I know that you're like, really into. You're really into testing people these days. I get it. It's like a phase you're going through, but like, come on.
- [54:30]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I guess the question is what sort of test is this and what. What conclusions to draw from? One way to read it is that Odysseus. It's kind of that way that he just. He can't stop being Odysseus. He's not a very trusting person and that he just can't. It's. It's something that you. He can't not be himself. He has to try people and see where they're. The other option and a somewhat kinder option and you could even fuse these. And I think this happens, whether or not Odysseus intends it or not, is to draw Laertes out and make him look at himself from the outside for a second, right? He's obviously sunk into a form of depression where he's just basically sitting here in rags. Odysseus makes the comment that this doesn't need to be necessary. Obviously things are well tended. You could tend to yourself as well. He's making his dad step out and look at himself and say, look, dad. What, what, what? You need to take care of yourself. What. What have you done? Now that. If that's true, I would make the argument that you see through this tale for Telemachus and for Odysseus and now for Laertes, that it's all very compressed. It's very tightly done here with Laertes, that there's some sort of flaw in the man that needs to be fixed and healed and overcome. And having done that, he then has. That's some internal battle that now transfers immediately into an external battle in which he deals with the suitors or a giant or whatever, right? So in Laertes we see that. That in Telemachus we see this, for example. He goes, you know, he needs to become a man. He needs to go on this voyage, grow up, be able to take command and now fight alongside his father. Well, Laertes has, you know, has sunk into this depression. He needs to again find himself, recover his. His dignity, recover his strength, which. And then now he. He's the last one. He goes out immediately and ends up fighting one of the suitors as well. He becomes, in a real sense, he. He returns to himself and becomes himself again. You see this, this, this process now happen. It happens for Telemachus, it happens for Odysseus, and now it happens again for Laertes. But just like in the. The world's most compressed form, what hap. What took them 23 books takes Laertes a couple of paragraphs compressed in the last book, but it's still that same process of flaw to over healing and overcoming to victory.
- [57:12]
Deacon Harrison
Do you find it interesting that the. The scar makes a reappearance, right, that the father has to yet again know his son by the scar? Yeah, but I think what still stands out to me is, is that Penelope is still the only one who the scar was not enough. Right. She had to have that kind of esoteric knowledge of how the bed was built. But even his father, right, the scar seems to kind of solidify that this, yes, this really, truly is my son.
- [57:40]
David
It is just faithful that he would. Or it is interesting that he would seek to test his father at all. Up until this point, he's been testing people to see if they have been faithful. And it is just a little bit interesting to me to even think about in what way could his father have been unfaithful? You know, like the relation and fatherhood is a, you know, what is considered a theme of this book. So it's like the relationship between Laertes and Odysseus is it would have been difficult or strange for him to have been unfaithful because he is his father. Right. You know, so I just thought that was interesting. It kind of caught me off guard. There's something naturally abhorrent about it. I think for him to even be testing his father, you know, almost to judge his worthiness because it somewhat subverts the natural order of things. And Thomas, I liked your insights there, but just on its face, it was something that surprised me.
- [58:54]
Deacon Harrison
I found it unsettling.
- [58:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I think there's malice behind it, though. I don't think there's malice behind it. I think it's the way that Odysseus relates to people. I think that this was an opportunity for him to become reacquainted with his father. And in a way this helps to restore Laertes to himself. And so, yeah, I think initially we might read this or we might think of Odysseus as just being a jerk to his dad and why doesn't he just reveal himself? But. But there's a need, I think, to restore the relationship between father and son. And I think this provides that opportunity. Not to mention it does serve a dramatic point where had Odysseus just said, I'm back. It would have been a letdown. And so I think the reader is wondering how Laertes is going to respond. Is he going to recognize his son? And then once, of course he does, then there's this big romantic embrace between the two. And so I think it does serve that sort of dramatic or poetic purpose as well.
- [59:59]
Deacon Harrison
David, I'm sympathetic to your statements, I really am, because I also found it somewhat unsettling or just agitating for him to treat his father like this. Particularly like I'm going to actually solicit like a really deep emotion. Like basically his father breaks down and then he starts to break down. And so then in, that's like, in that intimacy that they have this reunion. And I agree with you, there's something here that seems disordered to me. One thing that also though occurs to me is that no one seems to be mad at Odysseus for doing these tests. And I think that's something. They really stop back and think about that then once they realize Odysseus has been testing them, they seem to realize that there's a rationale behind the test. Because, I mean, I just think if this was a modern day story in Oklahoma and a son did this to his father, the first thing the father's gonna do is punch him right in the face. Like, why did you just put me through that? Right? Why are you doing that? But I think culture.
- [60:49]
David
And then hug and kiss him, but punch him in the face.
- [60:52]
Deacon Harrison
Yes. You know, it's like, I mean, this was like, you know, why did you just put me through that emotional hell, right, of doing that? So I do think that's something. Not that I'm always overly eager to give a defense of Odysseus, but I do think here that there seems to be a cultural aspect that they understand why they have to be tested. And again, you have to think of a culture that you don't see each other for years at a time. There's no way to communicate. And then someone just shows back up and says, hey, I'm so and so. And we even think this, right? We see someone that we haven't seen since high school and you're in the coffee shop and you're like, is that them? Is that like they look so different, like, but is that actually them, like fat and bald?
- [61:28]
David
That's not how I remember you.
- [61:30]
Deacon Harrison
Right. Do you have that scar still.
- [61:34]
Thomas Lackey
Where the boar got you?
- [61:35]
Adam
I want to, I wanted to bring up something and I, I heard this in a Commentary in passing. They said this in passing. So I wanted to go back and kind of make sure that it was true and then kind of read it. And I wanted to get you guys thoughts on this because I wasn't sure what to make of it. But the reaction that, that Odysseus dad has. This is line about like 355, he says, it says, at those words, a black cloud of grief came shrouding over Laertes. Both hands clawing the ground for dirt and grime. He poured it over his grizzled head, sobbing in spasms. Now, that is almost word for word what Achilles says once he does, once he finds out about Patroclus dying in the iliad. In book 18, about line 353, it says, this is right. When he finds out, he says a black cloud of grief came shrouding over Achilles, Both hands clawing the ground with soot and filth. He poured it over his head, fouled his handsome face, and black ashes settled into his fresh, clean war shirt.
- [62:49]
Thomas Lackey
And so, like, they're identical according to my commentary too.
- [62:53]
Adam
Like, really?
- [62:53]
Thomas Lackey
Okay, so word for word.
- [62:56]
Adam
So I'm not sure what to make of this idea of Laertes and Odysseus with Achilles and Patroclus, but I would love to hear your guys's thoughts on that.
- [63:11]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I mean, I haven't. I haven't made that connection myself. I mean, you know, a simple explanation would be that. That it's just formulaic, that. And we see this in Homer, that he will often, you know, reuse certain lines or phrases or passages as a kind of, again, almost like a robotic.
- [63:34]
David
Or a formulaic, like a turn of phrase, almost.
- [63:38]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah. But again, I wouldn't necessarily want to, you know, side with that particular. I mean, because that doesn't do justice, I think, to what you're suggesting that there seems to be a parallel or connection between these two couplings. So I don't. I don't have.
- [63:57]
David
Personally, though, I'm. I'm hesitant to ascribe to a connection between Laertes and Achilles. They just, I don't know, like, the idea of insinuating, like a similarity between the two just doesn't sit well with me.
- [64:18]
Deacon Harrison
I can't think of a similarity. I mean, nothing occurs to me just outside of the grief. Right. Just as a way to express the grief. I don't see like a typology between Achilles and Laertes in any particular way. No, I haven't thought about this, but this. Nothing occurs to me in the moment Outside of just what tethers the two is that deep relationship and that idea that the other one is gone. Right. So Achilles in the friendship of Patroclus and Laertes in the love of his son. Because it reminds me of Job. Right? I mean, that same. The other thing is, I agree that there could be a bard kind of lattice work going on here of the formulaic of what it means for a soul. Like how do I just knee jerk, remember to show someone in deep sorrow and sadness? Well, it's this formulaic way that could be true, but that also doesn't preclude it from having a deeper reading in the narrative. I don't want to take away from Homer the teacher there, so I very much agree with Dr. Grabowski. But I also thought it had some parallels of Job, just how they described Job and his own kind of, you know, ancient world grief.
- [65:28]
Thomas Lackey
I think there's an interesting east west question there as well, because most of these examples we have of this idea of sackcloth and ashes, we've got, you know, Jacob for when he's told of Joseph's death, we have Job, Mordecai. Most of these are coming out of the east. So I think there's an interesting question there as well as the, the how much this is informed from the, from the, the Eastern as well.
- [66:03]
Deacon Harrison
Anyway, well, let's push into the narrative a little bit and see what happens. So they. You have this reunion of Odysseus and his father Laertes. One of the things that stood out to me because we've been, we've been tracking and very much with Dr. Grabowski's assistance is the importance of spirit of the Thumas. Right. And there's an interesting line here at 4, 25 or so where father and son confirmed each other's spirits. And I thought that was kind of a beautiful scene. I know, Adam, you have some skepticism about the, the theme of fatherhood, which I, I'm not saying you're wrong. I do too. But there's two parts in this that I thought really were beautiful in the father son relationship. One is this that you have a father and son confirmed each other in their Thumas, their spirit. Right. Which I think is a beautiful picture of that relationship between father and son. The other one then is maybe just to kind of jump ahead a bit is, you know, the suitors all find out that their kinsmen have been killed. And so then Athena is. Then goes to Zeus. And one of the things that we see though, kind of just tracking the Father theme is that you see three generations get ready for war. Laertes, Odysseus and Telemachus. And there's a beautiful line in there too where Odysseus is basically telling Telemachus to get ready for war. And Telemachus basically says, like, I will not disgrace your line in their line. It's hard to exactly parse out exactly like how they're talking to each other there. But I think the confirmation of it is then Laertes basically talks about his heart bursting with joy to see his son and his grandson vying for courage. And for me, if we're going to take the theme of fatherhood in the Odyssey, to me that was the apex and that was also the apex of Telemachus own coming of age story that he really has. Here he is standing with his grandfather and his father as a warrior, side by side, ready to fight, you know, for the home. And to me, that is, you know, if I'm looking for an apex of Telemachus story, I think that might be it.
- [68:15]
Thomas Lackey
I think it's the apex of Laertes as well. You see this. I mean, his restoration is full at this point. He's gone from a beggar in rags to being, you know, sort of rejuvenated by Athena, but moreover, just sort of like you said, his thuma, his spirit has returned now. And he can look with joy on his son and on his grandson, which, you know, is itself a. An ancient form of blessing, you know. Right. You see your children's children and things like this, which you can see this life is full for Laertes at this.
- [68:51]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Moment, but hence the need for the test. You know, confirming each other's spirit implies that Laertes recognition of Odysseus wasn't on Odysseus revealing himself in some sort of blatant way, but it was an invitation for Laertes to see Odysseus for who he is. So it's sort of like, you know, I'm not just giving you the answers, I'm making you work out the answers for yourself and so that you can come to your own recognition of the truth. And I think this. Well, this may factor into Homer's broader critique of the Greek gods and the goddesses and Greek mythology in general. Because I'm looking forward to the killing of eupathies by Laertes because their names have a significant meaning. And so hopefully we'll get to that momentarily.
- [69:54]
Deacon Harrison
Well, let's look at the. Let's look at rumor and the townspeople finding out that Their kinsmen have been killed. Because I think this is. There's a few just, you know, preliminary investigations to get the conversation started. One, it shows us that not all the suitors are suffering from fatherlessness. And someone, ironically, the worst one, Antinous, is not. He has a father. Because remember, one of the theories we've had throughout this is that we had to remember that Ithaca has a missing generation, the men that went to Troy with Odysseus. And so one of the theories is that the suitors, one of the reasons they're so poorly formed, that have such poor behavior, even according to, you know, the local customs and culture, is because they're all lacking fathers.
- [70:36]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [70:36]
Deacon Harrison
There's a. That Ithaca is suffering a fatherlessness. I think that's true. But one of the things that then struck me when I read this passage after kind of tracking that theme, is that that's not true of all the suitors. Some of the suitors do have fathers. And again, ironically, Antinous, who is at least a leader or, you know, he might fight Eurymachus for being leader, he certainly is the most annoying. He does have a father. And of course, it's his father that then tries to rally the troops. Anyone else kind of take away from this as we kind of looked at the kinsmen coming together to fight Odysseus?
- [71:10]
Thomas Lackey
Well, I think there's another interesting question here, which is. There's another father here, which is Dolios, and his sons Melanthios and Melantho are suitors that were killed. But he is fighting on the side of Odysseus, which is very. A very interesting relationship here because now we've got. How do you say, use of. I forget his name already. As a contrast, who has, as it were, you can have a. A bad father with a bad son, which I think is Eupythes. You can also have an honorable father with a bad son who is Dolio. And it doesn't seem to go ahead.
- [72:06]
Deacon Harrison
Nothing. I was just gonna. I was gonna. Could you tie that to the text? Were you seeing the. The good father with the. With the poor son. Can we tie it to the text a bit?
- [72:15]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, so I think we'd have to go back a little bit. So when Dolios got there, there's a kind of weird back and forth between Odysseus and. Is he. I can't remember, is he a goat herd? Anyway, he's. He was sent there earlier by Penelope to bring a message to Laertes. And when he's reveals Odysseus reveals himself to him. I'm trying to look for the line. He basically is like, asks like, does Penelope know? And he kind of gruffly responds, yeah, she knows. Don't you know?
- [72:53]
David
It's like there's line 450.
- [72:55]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, there's a question there, I think, as to whether or not he's actually, I think there's an interesting question here as to whether or not Dolios knows his sons are dead or not and whether or not Odysseus is preventing him from going back to the full realization. I mean, at some point, obviously, as they discuss the fact that the suitors are the suitors, parents and family are angry, this obviously must have dawned on. On him. But I don't think he wants him to go back and see his son's body, if that makes sense. Or sons.
- [73:32]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, it does. I appreciate you pointing that out because I did not. I glanced right over that. I did not. I did not know.
- [73:38]
David
I had no idea that Dolios had two sons that were in the group of suitors. That, that really changes his, like the context of his behavior here at the.
- [73:51]
Deacon Harrison
End because he has, he has other sons, though, that are in the house with him that warmly greet Odysseus. Right. Those are the ones that I caught. I missed the ones that he has other sons that were amongst the suitors.
- [74:04]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, it's. I mean, I think there could be some doubt. I mean, in the sense that it might be. I suppose you could, you could posit that there's just another character of the same name that you know. But it seems to make the most sense that it's the same, you know, he. It's the same person.
- [74:27]
Deacon Harrison
So is that mentioned in this book as like, there's like a line that we can look to or it's just that one of the suitors, it says, is the son of Dolius.
- [74:34]
Thomas Lackey
And so there's a name connection, mentions this in books. Oh. Anyway, I'd have to go back. I'm sorry, I don't have it in.
- [74:43]
Deacon Harrison
Front of me, but yeah, no, that's fine. So that makes sense to me. So there's, there's a. So there's a, there's an idea here that could be ferreted out about whether these are the same characters that are listed. And if so, then that actually gives a pretty thick backstory to the man that's helping Odysseus now.
- [74:57]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, okay.
- [74:58]
Deacon Harrison
I like that.
- [75:03]
Thomas Lackey
Also, by the way, switch it back to Eupythes and they're in council. He basically says before Odysseus runs for, gives you a certain insight, I think, into the kind of character that Eupythes and Antinous have that they assume that Odysseus is just going to run away now. Right? They are assuming, I think, what they would do in this situation. Or in this case, you probably. Right. Well, obviously they're going to be coming for us, so let's make a break for it. Is it kind of when Odysseus has no intention of running?
- [75:43]
Deacon Harrison
A few of the things I noticed in that passage. One is, I just love that the fact that bard is once again like the person who's the. The source of reason and like giving the good advice. Right. I just love bards in this book. Right. So anyway, the. The inspired bard, Right. He gives this insight that it's with the deathless gods that did this for Odysseus. So if you guys go fight him, you're fighting the deathless gods.
- [76:03]
David
Okay, so I just looked this up on Wikipedia and Melanthius was one of Dolius's sons, the disloyal goatherd.
- [76:15]
Adam
The guy that got her.
- [76:17]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [76:18]
Deacon Harrison
So we. So we have two separate Doliuses.
- [76:21]
Thomas Lackey
No, no, I don't think so.
- [76:22]
Deacon Harrison
No.
- [76:23]
David
Melanthius is the son of Dolius.
- [76:25]
Deacon Harrison
Oh, Melanthius is the goatherd. Sorry.
- [76:27]
David
Melanthius was the goatherd. So, like, yes, one of his sons was not only like a bad dude, but was like the worst.
- [76:37]
Thomas Lackey
He had a pretty nasty fate too.
- [76:40]
Deacon Harrison
He has the. His son then has the worst, arguably the worst death in the entire Homeric text.
- [76:46]
Adam
That was brutal.
- [76:47]
David
Hey, Harrison, can I just mention something to you real fast? In the last week, I have become a swineherd. I just wanted to throw that out here on the podcast that now since I officially own I Got Pigs. So anyway, I don't want to talk about it, except to mention for my own humility that I'm a swineherd.
- [77:07]
Deacon Harrison
Just to kind of tether your own personality to the most virtuous character.
- [77:12]
David
Associate myself with the loyal swineherd. I just want to. I'm just throwing it out there. You can get back to scholarship now. I just.
- [77:24]
Thomas Lackey
We see this council right where you Pythes. I will say this also is helping complete our cycle because we start off with a council of gods and. And then of men through books one and two. And now we're wrapping that cycle around. We're going to have the council of the men and then we're going to have a quick little council of the gods again. So it's forming this complete arc. So there we've got that.
- [77:51]
Deacon Harrison
I like when we have the bard gives his advice, then we also have the seer. We have, the prophet gives advice too. And the only thing I want to mention here is obviously, you know, he. He blames the people, he blames the men, right? So even the ones that are, you know, had fathers there, they could have intervened. The family members could have intervened. We all knew that our family members, our kinsmen that were eating Odysseus house and home were doing the wrong thing, right? We could have stopped this, right? We had craven hearts. But the only thing I want to point out here is you never listen to me or to good commander Mentor. So again, we just kind of need to track that. Mentor's original duty was to kind of keep order in Ithaca and to actually watch over Telemachus. He seems to basically have utterly failed in that or been inept at least in doing that. But again, we're kind of remembering that this is why Athena takes on the form of Mentor, is because that was his actual role. That was what he was supposed to be doing. So here we see it confirmed. Again, that's a little after line 500. All right, let's look at Athena playing the role of intercessor. She goes before Zeus and presents with him two options, right? Will you prolong the pain, the cruel fighting here, or hand down pacts of peace between both sides? His response is somewhat interesting where he kind of pushes back on Athena and says, like, listen, this is all your plan. Like, what? What will you do? And again, it's unclear at times how much daylight there actually is between Zeus and Athena, right? His own, basically the embodiment of his own divine wisdom. But he does rule, right? So he pushes back on her, but then he does rule. He says, now that royal Odysseus has taken his revenge, let both sides seal their packs and he shall reign for life. And let us purge their memories of the bloody slaughter of their brothers and their sons. Let them be friends, devoted, as in the old days. Let peace and wealth come cresting through the land.
- [80:00]
Thomas Lackey
Comparing to the Iliad, I would say that. Will you prolong the slaughter is a very reasonable question because, I mean, Zeus drawing out the slaughter between Troy and the Achaians is a strong theme of the Iliad.
- [80:21]
David
Yeah. And Harrison, what you're saying about how much of a difference is there between Athena and Zeus? I just thought it was funny because he tells her, do as your heart desires, but let me Tell you how it should be done, like how, you know, like how much leeway are you really giving her?
- [80:41]
Adam
You will learn how we do it the proper way.
- [80:43]
David
Yes, do whatever you think, as long as it's exactly like this.
- [80:48]
Deacon Harrison
Well, who was it, Dr. Grabowski? Were you the one earlier? Because I really like this book end that at the beginning of the book we have Zeus basically saying like, listen, all these problems that mankind has, it's not our fault, it's their fault, right? They're doing it. And then here at the end of the text in book 24, it's 100% up to the gods whether or not this problem stops. So there's a really interesting book ending here between book one and book 24. And whether or not, you know, my thesis reading book one is this is a joke. I mean Homer's setting this forward. But like this is clearly funny in somewhat of a dark way. There's no way to come off reading the Iliad and think that Zeus's will does not move all things towards rent like book like the book one in Iliad mentions. And so for Zeus to come back and just say, listen, I don't know why these mortals are keep blaming us for their problems. Like this is Homer throwing out, you know, a thesis that I think is going to be challenged the same way that I think in the Iliad when it actually throws out the Zeus moves all things towards their end. I think then there's many things in the Iliad that bring that into question between the role of fate, whether Zeus is up to subject to a nameless fate and things like this. So Homer seems to have this capacity at the beginning of his epics of throwing out these thesis statements connected to Zeus and then basically testing them throughout the entire narrative. But in the Odyssey, it seems like by the time you get to book 24, the opening statement of the Odyssey about, from Zeus is comical.
- [82:19]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Well, and yeah, and I guess I'm not sure what everyone's position is on this proposal to inflict collective amnesia on the Ithacans. I think maybe a couple of you indicated that this, he may not be serious about this. I mean certainly if he did inflict collective amnesia on the Ithacans, we wouldn't be reading the story. How would the story have been? Again, if we take this to be literal and all that. I mean it never would have come down through the ages wiping the memory though. This is no way to help a people or to bring peace. I mean certainly we've engaged, we as a society have engaged in this in Recent years, through various acts of iconoclasm, ripping down statues, rewriting history books. This is probably not the best way to remember our past evils or, you know, to at least, you know, if you. If you wipe out the past evils, that's no way to perpetuate a society. And so I'm not exactly sure what Zeus has in mind, if he is.
- [83:29]
Deacon Harrison
Serious about this, because, to be clear, you read this or your question is as whether or not to purge their memories of the bloody slaughter is an incredibly literal statement.
- [83:40]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I don't. I don't know what I mean. He says it. And so I'm wondering how to read this as not being literal.
- [83:47]
Deacon Harrison
I did not take it. I'm not against it. I did not take it as literal, just rather that, you know, the gods are going to restore order mainly through force, like they always do. And then that. And what we'll kind of see at the end is that then this chain of violence, the circle of violence, is broken. And so therefore Odysseus is able to reign. The idea that the suitors, maybe not all of Ithaca, but at least the kinsmen, redeemers, right, the blood avengers of the suitors have their minds wiped in order to establish peace. That's interesting. I didn't pick up on that in the text and something I'd have to think about.
- [84:24]
David
I also didn't take it literally. I took it as more of a metaphor because you just don't see it happen in the text. And it seems like, you know, there is. There is sort of peace at the end when they all just decide, okay. Athena said so, you know, almost like, all right, I'll forget about it. You know, like, he's the. He's the. The mobster saying, forget about it. And you just say, okay, I will. Because, you know, the consequences of not forgetting about it are going to be really bad. That's just how I took it. I took it, I guess, you know, like. Like there's a lot in Homer that happens that's not in these two books, or there's a lot in the. In the. In the greater story, anyway. It's not in Homer, I guess. But so, like, Frank, I'm totally open. I. I don't feel. I really don't feel strongly either way. That's just not how I originally took it.
- [85:28]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, I just, I. I wasn't sure because Athena doesn't reveal herself to be Athena. She's still in the form of Mentor. In fact, at the very end, I mean, that's the Last line. She kept mentors.
- [85:39]
Thomas Lackey
Very interesting last line.
- [85:42]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I mean, does anybody really recognize who's laying down the judgment at this point? Do they realize.
- [85:47]
David
That's a really good question. I. That didn't. I had not even thought of that.
- [85:51]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah. Outside of the lightning bolt. Right. Would probably be the most divine moment where the Zeus sends down a lightning bolt. Because Odysseus, which ironically. Right. Which again calls into question his character and who he is. Odysseus is the one that has the biggest problem listening.
- [86:09]
Thomas Lackey
But yeah, I don't think he's fully. I mean, he still has that last bit of rashness that seems to take over at some moments. Like with the Cyclops.
- [86:21]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, just a bit.
- [86:22]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Hubris. Yes.
- [86:24]
Thomas Lackey
The. Okay, I guess I want to ask.
- [86:27]
Deacon Harrison
Well, I want to hear. I want to hear Adam's opinion on this. Just as our kind of like resident first time reader. Even though Thomas, I think is a first time reader too. But Thomas cheats by reading 400 commentaries and then brings all of this, all of this knowledge. You know, he's like throwing out the Greek and everything.
- [86:44]
Adam
It's my first time reading. I've read 700 books about this.
- [86:46]
Deacon Harrison
If it makes you feel better, I'm a first time reader of 67 commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey.
- [86:52]
David
Deacon. If it makes you feel better, he listened to those commentaries in French while he was also writing a book in German while programming for his day job at the same time.
- [87:02]
Deacon Harrison
I'm just happy he allows.
- [87:04]
David
Yeah, yeah. Programming in braille.
- [87:07]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah. I wish some of that. True.
- [87:14]
David
He actually speaks Braille.
- [87:17]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah. The accolades of Thomas Lackey. So let's go back to Adam. We'll leave the accolades alone for a second.
- [87:27]
Thomas Lackey
Oh, yeah.
- [87:28]
Adam
Adam. Oh, hey, hey, hey, guys.
- [87:30]
David
Do you do any of those things?
- [87:31]
Adam
No, I don't. No.
- [87:33]
Deacon Harrison
I haven't even asked the question yet. What are you answering? So.
- [87:36]
Adam
Oh, I think. Okay. Sorry.
- [87:37]
Deacon Harrison
No, I was just trying to turn you to first time reader. And then we got lost on how amazing Thomas is. So I. Because the first time I read this, I found the ending incredibly disappointing. I found it incredibly lackluster. How did you feel the ending was, Adam?
- [87:54]
Adam
As I have felt. As I felt with the Iliad. As I felt like with a lot of these. The great books that we've been reading this far is like, what? It's over. I was expecting something else. However, with Dr. Grabowski's commentary at this very end, when Athena, you know, stays under the guise of Mentor, it does bring a little bit of light that I was not like, thinking about. So, like, I did feel like that there was. There was just. It's just frustrating, especially whenever you read afterwards, like, some of the plays and things that talk about what Odysseus does afterwards. It's like, I would have liked a little bit more closure on Odysseus. I would have liked a little bit more closure on, like, what happens. Like, like, what. Who he is. Like, what happens with him, like, and him and Telemachus, like, specifically that. Like, I wanted to know, like, okay, because some of the stories, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't. I haven't read them all, so I could be. I could be off here. But, like, is that he goes off and goes back off to war. Like, you know, continues different Odysseys, so to speak. And so it's like, well, if that's the case, if that's what he does, then how much of it was really him desiring to come back to be with Penelope and Telemachus? Specifically Telemachus, because people talk about, you know, him being. This is a fatherhood story that, you know, that he wanted to go back to be a father to Clematis. Because, like, book 23, really, like, I struggled with it because it was like, he finally made it back. They all agreed that he is actually Odysseus. It was like, great. And then what does he do? Yeah. By the way, I gotta go. It's like, wait a minute. You just got back from, like, 10, like, 20 years of being away from Penelope and, like, you finally got to see, like, your son and, like, be with them and, like, I know, like, I just have. I have questions, I guess.
- [89:56]
David
To be fair, though, he does go to see his father.
- [89:59]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah.
- [89:59]
Adam
But, like, you know, you should maybe, like, hang out with your family.
- [90:02]
David
No, I totally. I click. Like, yeah, I would have. Yeah, I would have done things differently.
- [90:07]
Adam
Right.
- [90:07]
David
Me.
- [90:08]
Adam
So if. If it is the case, like, first I'd like to know, like, is that. Is that actually the case is, like, some of the stories after this book that he goes off and, like, does other adventures and things like that. If that's the case, how do you defend that? This is actually a fatherhood tale.
- [90:26]
Deacon Harrison
That's very good. Let's do this. I want to split that in half. So one is about the ending itself, and then the second is about what happens after the Odyssey. Because I think the tradition of what happens to Odysseus is part of that character assessment of how the tradition has received him. So on the ending itself, one of the reasons I found it very lackluster is because I actually think it sets up a wonderful problem which is you have this kind of, you know, this ancient culture and they're mainly operating under like. So if you think about justice, how's justice carried out? Well, if your family member is murdered, we're still operating under an eye for an eye. And it's not the polis that's going to come in and like do this. The police are not going to come and arrest you and throw you in jail and then the city is going to execute you. Right. This is still somewhat of a very kind of tribal, family based justice. And so it's the kinsmen that are going to go out and have to seek the blood. Right. And we see this in the Old Testament, this is the kinsman redeemer, this is the blood avenger. I think in the Hebrew that's literally the exact same words. And they play the role of family unity, you know. So whether that is like, well, I had a family member that was murdered, well, now I need to go murder the murderer. Right? It's an eye for an eye. What is that? Lex talionis, right? The, the law of vengeance. And in another way it's, it's different, it's a funny example, but it's actually the same principles that has like with Ruth and Boaz because sometimes kinsmen redeemers also then the guy that has to go marry like his brother, his brother's widow to keep that line of the family together. Right? So this is the whole point of this is the family unit is the number one political unit in society and it has these rules about trying to keep it whole and there has to be justice if something's done that's wrong to it. So I actually really like the setup of book 24 because it calls into question is what Odysseus did just is what Telemachus and all these people did just because here comes all the suitors, kinsmen and their family members just murdered. So under Lex tonleonis, what are you going to do? We need to go murder the murderers. And you see very quickly that this can actually turn into a giant cycle of violence. And so one of the reasons I found book 24 to be so lackluster seems to be the word that keeps reoccurring to me is that it just turns into deus ex machina. This is what Dr. Grabowski talked earlier about, right? It turns into the God of the machine, where the divinity. And again it's under the guise of mentor but again, there is a lightning bolt that comes down and kind of, you know, recommends to everyone that you should probably stop and that this is Zeus's will that the God of the machine comes down. The gods just have to come down and stop an overly complicated plot point and just say, peace, you have peace. The end, you're done. And I don't know. I haven't. You know, there's probably layers there that I don't appreciate, but I definitely did not find it satisfying. And I think that I don't want to say too much because one of the things that after we end our year of Homer, we're going to start reading the great plays, and we can talk about that here in a little bit, but I think that the Oresteia, which is this trilogy of tragic plays that we're going to end. I recently just read through them all, and it really dawns on me that the end of the Oresteia sets up the exact same problem with different characters, but then turns it into a trial and a question of what is justice. And I actually think the end of the Oresteia, which we'll get into and read, actually provides a much more satisfying answer than the end of the Odyssey does, because then the Odyssey is still just a deus ex machina, the power of the gods stop acting out of fear. The cycle of violence is broken. And end of the Oresteia, which is, what is that going to be three, 400 years later, really actually takes it up in a much more philosophical sense of like, well, wait, who's wrong and why? It's with different characters, but it plays it out. So I, you know, for those who are listening along, if you found the end of it just to be not satisfying, I think the tradition might agree with that to a certain extent. And I think we're gonna get another shot at it with the Oresteia.
- [94:33]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Can I just add.
- [94:34]
Thomas Lackey
What.
- [94:34]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
I agree with you 100%, Deacon Harrison. Yeah. You know, when I. When I first read, and when I've, you know, in subsequent readings, looked at book 24, it does seem a bit almost anticlimactic and rushed, like. Like we've said. Although something I thought about over the past couple of days, and this is not something that we can explore, is. And I mentioned this already, is Laertes being the one who kills Eupythes. Now, this is an incredibly esoteric take on that particular event, but we know Eupythes is the father of Antinous, right? And Eupythes in Greek means obedient or obedience. Antinous Means resistance. But it could also mean anti nous or antinous, which means unreasoned against reason, against mind. And so who is it that. Okay, so obedience gives rise or gives birth to a kind of irrationality. Well, who is it that kills obedience? Well, Laertes. But what does Laertes in Greek mean? It means he who gathers the people. And so I'm wondering if there's some sort of interesting point that Homer is trying to make here by having he who gathers the people, which brings to mind a certain kind of democratic or sort of a collective idea or something, you know, of the people to be the one who ultimately puts obedience to death in order to save us from irrationality. So I don't know if anyone has any thoughts on that. I just sort of dropped that into your laps. But. But it would certainly fit with a reading of Homer as being a critic of Greek mythology. But then again, I don't know what side. What side he's on. Is he pro or is he con? Is he critical of the pantheon, or is this a point? Is the point he's making that we have handed ourselves over too much to the collective and by murdering obedience, that we've somehow thrown ourselves into the current state that we're in? I don't know, but it's sort of a. I mean, it's definitely an esoteric reading of the text, but, you know, it would at least give some weight to the ending that we might not necessarily attribute at first.
- [97:19]
Adam
Yeah.
- [97:19]
David
And it's even more interesting that he spears him through the mind, you know?
- [97:24]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [97:25]
David
He doesn't just kill him, but he kills him through the brain.
- [97:28]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Right.
- [97:29]
Thomas Lackey
Well, there could be even a twist on the same reading, which is that he is, at that moment being, in fact, disobedient. Right. So it might not be so much a rejection of obedience or. Obedience. Yeah.
- [97:44]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah.
- [97:44]
Thomas Lackey
Because he's rising up against the king. So it could be a kind of a judgment. And I think if you could actually make that argument in general, I think. I don't know if we did this in a podcast or we did this elsewhere, but I was. I can. I read the Iliad and the Odyssey together as a kind of commentary on what I called the three last things, which was death, judgment in Hades, because we don't really have an idea of heaven. So we just get. Oh, sorry. Yeah, you just get.
- [98:21]
David
I hate it when people forget to turn their phone off. It's just so rude. Oh, my God.
- [98:24]
Thomas Lackey
It's just so, so horrible that. Yeah. You get so much of the Iliad especially has to do with, with death. And what does death even mean? But I think you start seeing, particularly in book 11 of the Odyssey, the question of judgment, the idea that Agamemnon and Achilles are in Hades, not, you know, as a true sort of just punishment for their excesses.
- [98:55]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And then we also mean the legendary heroes too, Thomas.
- [98:58]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah, exactly.
- [99:00]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Yeah, yeah.
- [99:01]
Thomas Lackey
I mean, I think that's, that's essentially, that's their, their fundamental role, if you will, in that. And then when you get to Heracles you get this kind of hint that there might be something more because it's said that it's just maybe his ghost down there, but the real Heracles is up in Olympus. And so there's kind of this like, it's like three and a half last things at this point. There's like a, there's like a little hint that there might be something more. But the overarching idea seems to be death, judgment and Hades and that Odysseus stands in some ways in relief against those. Or as I don't even. Obviously he's destined there eventually. Although maybe not. I mean there's a Heracles saying, hey, you and me, you know, we're like, this is, I mean, think strongly hinting that Odysseus ultimate fate is different and something higher. But there isn't.
- [100:04]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
There's that one passage, I can't remember what book it's in, but it's when they're loading all of the goodies that Odysseus received and he and Athena are collaborating and they're stowing it away in that cave of the nymphs. And there's the one entrance that is accessible only to mortals and the other one that's accessible to the gods. And it's ambiguous as to which one Odysseus goes through. And I think that's deliberate.
- [100:27]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah. And I think that there's, there's when you, there's a, in the deliberate, deliberate kind of sense. I also think in the rushed and it does feel rushed ending of this. The ambiguities though, I think are there. They're kind of satisfying in their own sort of dissatisfying way. These are sort of somewhat open questions. Odysseus has finally made it home, but we've been told all the way from book 11 that he's going to have to leave again. Right. All of these things have this kind of, this open endedness to them. And in the case of the, of the idea of the Aristaya I think is really Key if you trace the whole history of the Atreides, so you've got Agamemnon and, but not just that. The whole family is one as a cycle of never ending violence where crimes were committed which had to be avenged that led to other crimes that had to be avenged. If you look at the cycle in Troy, you have the crimes of Paris and Helen leading to the Trojan War in a way that itself leads to crimes that cry out for vengeance. And I think what Homer is wrestling with to an extent here at the end is is there any way out of this? I mean this is definitely the question, exactly the question Aeschyluscus is going to bring up again. But here it's like maybe there's not or maybe the only way is to let it go. I mean we've had, just had the advice, look, the suitors had what's coming to him. This is definitely a question of judgment, right? So there's not a question that we just have to pay this back. They're definitely being advised this was what was deserved and had to happen. And I mean Agamemnon himself sort of ratifies this down in, in Hades. But then the question is how do we stop it? Because the next thing is going to be vengeance. And I think the answer is not terribly satisfying. And so maybe, maybe you just have to have some lightning bolt fault, you know, come down from heaven cycle.
- [102:35]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
And Thomas, I think that everything you've said really does. It helps to highlight the sort of teacher that Homer is. You know, we talked about, you know, the, the importance of reading Homer as a kind of teacher. The question would be, well, in what way is he a teacher? I mean, how is he didactic? And he's not didactic simply by giving us the answers, but inviting us into the conversation in the same way that Plato does with his dialogues. His dialogues often end with a lack of resolution, but that's a way to invite us into the conversation and to continue that conversation beyond the text.
- [103:12]
Deacon Harrison
Well, I think too there's, there's a real wisdom in showing what things are not. So even if the answer is not resolved. Right? What, what is this thing actually being able to say? Well, it's not this and it's not this either is actually that's a real form of wisdom.
- [103:27]
Thomas Lackey
Right.
- [103:27]
Deacon Harrison
The via negativa. Right. I, I know what this thing is not which is very Socratic, but I also think it's in Homer. I, you know. No, Thomas, those are great points. I, the, the thought kind of the overarching architectonic thought that I have. As we're kind of wrapping up this year, I'd like to return to it. Maybe at some point in the podcast is what is Homer the teacher doing with Odysseus and the Odyssey as far as Arete goes? So, like, I'm very comfortable in the Iliad starting to kind of do some analogues where it's like, okay, Achilles is that spiritedness just absolutely unbridled. It's the rage. Hector, I think, is the spiritedness with proper boundaries. Now, he's not perfect, but proper boundaries insofar as, like, you look at his piety, right, his piety towards the gods, towards the city, towards his family. And I think they're in a hierarchy, and I think he respects that kind of threefold hierarchy as he kind of plays out his own spiritedness. Paris is very much the appetitive. So if we think of the soul that Socrates is going to talk about, Socrates is going to talk about a three tripart soul. He's going to talk about the appetitive at the bottom, which goes after pleasure, the spirited, right, which then goes after honor and glory. And then he's going to talk about reason being at top. And each one of these loves something. Reason loves truth. The spirited loves glory. The appetitive loves pleasure. And each one finds a certain immortality insatiating in those things. And very clearly, I think you. You see these in the Homeric text. I think that, you know, Plato's downstream of Homer, and in a lot of ways, you know, when you read Aristotle, he only brings up Plato when he disagrees with him. That's about the only time he ever does. He's like, well, you know, Plato thought this, but here's the answer. And people don't realize that in, like, half the things Aristotle says, he's pulling directly from his master Plato. I have this. I have a sneaking suspicion that Plato's the same way with Homer. He only brings him up in the dialogues in Republic when he disagrees with him. But actually he's in debt to him a lot. And that's something I think we need to watch on the podcast as we kind of move forward and enter this great conversation. Because I think very much that tripart soul is at least in the spirited and the appetitive very apparent in the Iliad, right? I mean, Paris can't think outside the appetitive in any kind of, like, rational way. But then the question is there. Where is reason? Who represents reason? As far as arete goes, where do we see reason? And, you know, Odysseus is not a philosopher. It's not in a robust way. But we have this show that Odysseus ends up being a greater champion than Achilles. And why? Well, because of his cleverness. And so we don't get, I think, a full robust, like Homer's showing us that the philosophical life is the best life ever and that you should pursue truth. But I do think there's something beginning here in Homer that shows us that the life of the mind and the role of the mind in the human does play into arete, it does play into excellence and can lead to the best type of life. Life. Because I do think he does intentionally present Odysseus in triumph over Achilles.
- [106:27]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
Agreed.
- [106:29]
Adam
Totally agree. Yeah.
- [106:31]
David
You know, that's something that I struggled with, is whether or not Odysseus is a hero, whether or not he is, is worthy of emulation. And once again, I mentioned this already at the beginning. It's very difficult for me to separate the way I think about things from the benefit that I have that the audience at the time did not. Okay? Because when I look at Odysseus and his treatment of the suitors, I say this is objectively unjust, that your property is of infinitely less value than the lives of these people. Right? And I'm doing that through a lens, through divine revelation, right? That, you know, God created them. You know, the soul is worth more than the universe. And so to me, I think that I would say objectively it was unjust what he did to the suitors, but it was because, you know, he did it from the direction of the gods. So, you know, whether he's culpable or, you know, I think we don't need to try to put our, our standard of judgment upon him, because I don't. I don't think that's fair. My takeaway also from the very end is because, you know, Deacon, you said you didn't really like the ending. I think it. Most people probably won't because it kind of just stops, right? It's not so much an ending as it. As a stopping. But my takeaway is that only the gods can bring peace. That only through the divine can peace reign in the world of man. And I say that knowing that there's an inherent contradiction in the story because it was through the divine that the conflict came about in the first place. But I think that it's okay. I think that we can have this contradiction and still take the good away from both sides, right? Because of what Homer is trying to say. I think that we can say as a teacher, he's positing that the divine that we know might not be the divine that exists. Right. Because here's what happens from the divine that we know. But I will tell you in the end that the divine that exists is the only divine from which we can find peace.
- [108:56]
Deacon Harrison
I like that as a moral read on, on that particular passage. Yeah, I, I agree with what you said that if you look at the overall arc in Homer, that's going to be a difficult thesis. Right, Right. I think of like the. The Shield of Achilles, where the Olympian gods are only mentioned in the city at war. Right. They're always agitators. But if you kind of look at this simple pericope, right, just like this passage as a moral read, I really like that. Right. That man is basically lost in his own antagonisms and it takes, you know, the divine to come in and bring peace. Let me, let me kind of push this forward a bit and talk about, give a brief summary of just like the tradition, like what happens to all these characters, et cetera, because I think this kind of goes into how the tradition receives them, which helps us discern these characters and their. What we think about them. So we haven't talked about a whole lot about this, but in brief, right, we know that the Odyssey and the Iliad, or the Iliad and the Odyssey were part of a larger cycle, not necessarily written by Homer. But there are other poems, right, that actually then built out this large chronological story. The Homeric texts are the ones that were the most famous and the only ones that really survived. But there is the one that immediately after this, chronologically takes up, just starts right where the Odyssey leaves off. And there's basically two major movements of it. One is that Odysseus leaves again and he presumably leaves to fill out his duty. Right. If you remember the prophecy, he has to carry the oar, he has to go inland, all these things. Well, he just so happens to go to a kingdom and like the queen and marries the queen and stays in this foreign land for a while, leads some wars, does some things like this until he eventually comes back. In. In brief, he's again presented as this incredibly kind of restless, unsettled soul, right. So he had all these things about coming home and then he has to leave again and he marries another woman, et cetera. There's probably a lot there to unpack. The second shoe to drop, though, which I think is the more interesting of the two, is that the tradition holds that Odysseus had sons by Circe, remember Circe the immortal, that he had sons by her? And so the second half of that epic is that one of Odysseus sons is sent by Circe to go find him and he lands on Ithaca and basically starts ravaging the island. And Odysseus comes out to stop him and is killed by him. The son doesn't actually realize that that's his father and he kills Odysseus and Odysseus dies under the hand of one of his own sons by Circe. The son is remorseful about what happened because that was not his intent. And so he takes Odysseus body, Penelope and Telemachus all back to Circe's island. And so this gets like real soap opera esque and only the Greeks can do it. Circe then decides to give Penelope and Telemachus immortality. Penelope then marries Odysseus son that he had by Circe, and Telemachus marries Circe. The end.
- [111:57]
Dr. Frank Grabowski
So is this canonical or fan fiction?
- [112:00]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, that's what it sounds like, right? It sounds like fan fiction. So there's that one, there's two more, and both of them are very brief. One is that it's hilarious. Yeah, yeah. There's a reason that one is probably not as famous. The other one is Aristotle mentions a different legend, which this one I actually enjoy, which is that Telemachus actually goes back and marries Nausicaa. Remember the princess that was on the island that was basically like a younger Penelope, when you just.
- [112:30]
David
He married some other queen. I was thinking, like, if he married some other queen, why didn't he marry Nausicaa, like right back in the day?
- [112:37]
Deacon Harrison
So Telemachus actually goes and marries her, which I think is. I think there's a certain beauty to that. When I, when I found that one in Aristotle, I thought that was very good. And then the last one, just as far as picking up, like, what happened to these characters is probably the famous narrative from Dante. So now we've skipped a bunch, we've gone, now we're up in the 1200s. But Dante creates his own ending. From what we can tell, he invented it of Odysseus, which in short, again, Odysseus can't stay on the island. He's too unsettled and he wants to go in search of knowledge. So he decides to get another ship. A whole group of men gives this kind of speech to them about how they're going to go, you know, understand the divine and the gods and etc. And they go out and sail Past the Strait of Gibraltar, the Pillars of Hercules or Heracles. And that's important because those pillars were the end of the known world. That was really seen as the ambit of man. That man did not go past these pillars because outside of that, we don't know what's out there.
- [113:33]
Adam
Right.
- [113:33]
Deacon Harrison
It's the abyss. It's the. It's the watery abyss. But he's going to go and sail past them. And so he makes a certain distance, which, by the way, this is where Dante puts the mountain of purgatory, is out there in those waters and basically then is struck, bound by the divine out of his arrogance, the God. God just strikes the ship and they all die. And that's the end of Odysseus, this unsettled creature that can't find peace on the island. And so one thing that just kind of struck me, though, because I think earlier we were talking about, like, whether we like him or don't like him. And are you going to pick up on the themes of him being unsettled and losing all of his men? Are you going to pick up on him being a father to Telemachus? I think overwhelmingly the tradition picks him up pretty negatively. The tradition sees him as someone who can't stay settled, that he really is his own problem in a lot of ways. And I don't think this is helped by the fact that then the tradition overall, particularly if you get into the medievals, sees the Trojans as the good guys. So the Greeks are inevitably, you know, painted as this kind of disordered, rabbly bunch that happened to overthrow Troy, which was an unjustice, an injustice that's finally settled and solved and resolved when Rome conquers Greece. And so Rome is the eventual revenge of Troy upon the Achaeans. And so they just don't. They don't seem to receive Odysseus quite well because Dante in that narrative also puts Odysseus in hell. Odysseus and Diomedes actually share the same flame. Remember Diomedes from the Iliad?
- [115:05]
Thomas Lackey
Yeah.
- [115:05]
David
That's too bad, because I really like Diomedes. Like, he was my favorite in the Iliad.
- [115:10]
Deacon Harrison
Yeah, I'm more sympathetic to him than I am to Odysseus. But they share the same burning flame, which is very much, in Dante, supposed to show the imagery of a tongue.
- [115:20]
Thomas Lackey
Right.
- [115:20]
Deacon Harrison
It's a flickering tongue. And so they're in hell, arguably, for evil counsel. They're evil counselors. And so overall, I mean, my general thesis here would be that the tradition does not actually Receive Odysseus well. And so, Adam, to your point, I kind of wonder how modern this read is of, like, really focusing on, like, fatherhood and coming home and place and, like, Penelope and etc. And while I agree that you can pull out all of those moral themes, I don't think that's the totality of the story.
- [115:53]
David
Yeah, I think you have to ignore the overarching, like, the overarching story to find those things. Yes, there are moments of fatherhood, sure, but to me, that's just not what the story's about.
- [116:08]
Adam
We'd like to hear what you have to say about the episode. Dean, is there anything else you want to put a bow on before we wrap up?
- [116:17]
Deacon Harrison
I think just maybe a brief moment of where we're going. Right. So we've ended our first year of Ascend, the Great Books podcast. We've ended our year of Homer. I greatly appreciate the conversation that we've had today because I think we've kind of parsed out not just book 24, but a lot of the perennial themes and truths and questions that we can ask. We are going into roughly six months of Greek plays. So the Greek plays are kind of the intellectual bridge between Homer and, say, Socrates and Plato. And so we're going to read the Oresteia. So we invite everyone to continue to read with us, and so you can check out the website and find us on X. We'll have updates there about where you can find the text and what translations we're using and things of this nature. But we'll read the Oresteia, which actually picks up with Agamemnon's death and will give us kind of the story of what happened with him in that interim period. And so it's be a story that we're very familiar with. We're going to recognize a lot of the characters, but you get a lot more details. And I think it's going to be much more philosophically thick than we see in Homer. Right. There's been a maturation of Greek thought. And then we're going to go into the Theban plays or the Oedipus cycle and read a wonderful, wonderful play called Antigone, which is one of my favorite pieces of literature. And so we'll spend some time, about six months, and then we're going to launch a Year of Plato. So we had our year of Homer. We will have a year of Plato, and we'll start reading through his dialogues, which will include the Republic, and really kind of see where a lot of the perennial questions of philosophy in the west started right. He is the father of philosophy. So I've greatly appreciated everyone is Year of Homer. I think we have some good things ahead.
- [117:46]
Adam
Yeah. I want to thank Dr. Grabowski for and Thomas Lackey and David Niles for joining us today. I also want to thank you guys for, for hanging in there with us through the Year of Homer. If you are just now like tuning in through the Odyssey, we did do the Iliad for the first six months, so go check that out on on our podcast as well. One of the things you could do that would greatly help us is share with your friend, let them know that this is what we're doing and let them know, like, you know, now that you have read this through with us, hopefully you can go and start your own small group and read with them and so you can read through the Iliad, you can read through the Odyssey and then pick up with us when we go through the Greek tragedies and the plays. Another thing you could do is also rate and review our podcast. That would be very helpful to help spread the word. And check us out on patreon.com that would give you the opportunity to download the study guide and then everything else that we have posted on there. This has been ascended. The Great Books Podcast. The end of Homer in a year. Thank you guys for hanging out with us throughout this whole year. Thank you Deacon, for all of your work. We'll see you guys next week.
- [118:56]
Deacon Harrison
See you.